


Saving Grace

by olivarrys



Series: Elastic Heart(s) [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mentioned Character Death, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 01:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4000645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivarrys/pseuds/olivarrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you hurt those you care about even when you didn't mean to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt - Anonymous asked: barry and oliver getting into a huge fight and both of them are miserable when they are back to their respective cities and caitlyn and felicity calling each other up like "hello why is barry/oliver miserable they won't tell me anything but it's after they went on a date and barry won't leave his apartment or associate with anyone and oliver hasn't smiled and he hardly speaks to team arrow so like what happened?" angsty and they're secretive about the fight but then fluff after they makeup

Sometimes you hurt those you care about even when you didn't mean to.

They're fighting.

It had been sudden too.

They had gone to dinner after a mission, and after: when both came back, Barry was a blank sheet with puffy eyes and tear-stricken cheeks, and Oliver was all harsh lined with a dark stare.

Everyone around them assume it was because of the dinner, but Thea and Iris know better. These are their siblings, and they know Oliver and Barry (respectively) better than anyone, and they know it didn't start with the dinner -- no, it started with the mission.

The mission where Barry was trying to stop a burning building. On the news, everyone realises that one person didn't make it in time. It was a man who saved his child but fell from the tenth floor shortly after and drowned in the flames, after being covered in rubble. They still can't begin to think about what happened that would have upset Barry and Oliver to the point of fighting with each other.

All they know is of the way Barry had been frantic, panicked, screaming into the comm that he had to try and save the man, had to try and do something. Oliver hadn't let him because it was too late -- the fire was blazing everywhere. They just needed to get out as many people as they could. Barry had almost gotten trapped when trying to save the man. If Oliver hadn't gotten Barry out... well. That was an awful thought to think about.

But the fight is still up in flames in Barry's memory, just as he can still feel the licks of pain that burns through his body.

It is during the dinner; the fight that is.

Barry was distraught, still. He could have saved the man, but he wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, just wasn't enough.

Oliver had held him as he had cried in the middle of the restaurant, told him, "You can't save everyone."

And Barry had pushed him away, mourned over the man who was a father, was a husband, was a person -- dammit, and it was his fault that the man died --

The elder vigilante had tried to calm him down, tried to console him, that sometimes it's just not enough. that people die for a reason, that it wasn't their fault, wasn't anyone's fault.

Barry had turned Angry; not at Oliver, but at the situation, turned red in anger, it made Oliver's insides churn. Barry had shouted at him that Death just wasn't something he could get used to. The unspoken words 'unlike you' came loud and clear in Oliver's head like church bells. 

No -- Angry is an understatement. Barry had been vehement, vicious and fuck -- everything Oliver had had in him had been terrified that this was it. That this was Barry leaving and Oliver had to beat him to the punch, couldn't not. Had to roll his eyes in the face of Barry's hurts. Had to shout that life wasn't fair, that people died, that Barry had to get used to it. It'd only been after the elder's derision that the younger had turned scathing, mean in his aggressions, his _I'll never get used to the sight of someone dying right in front of me Oliver_ , "How could you just say to get used to it?"

His _I've never had to have someone's body dying in my arms other than my mom's! How could you say that to me? How could you act like this isn't a big deal?_

Oliver didn't have a response that was worth listening to. He punched the table, the cutlery making a loud crash as Barry had jumped, had flinched away from him.

Oliver has never loved something softly until Barry and he still fucked it all up.

Barry hadn't gone home that night, he stayed at STAR Labs. He had sat down on the medical bed and slept there. It was how Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris had found him. Lying there with dried tears on his face. Barry hadn't responded well to anyone. When everyone had asked him what was wrong, if he was hurt, he had just left. Just blankly stared until finally running home.

He didn't leave his house after that.

This wasn't the first fight that Oliver and Barry had, certainly, but regardless: it was the first anything that had gone for so long before Barry had tried to apologise and apologise.

It's gotten everyone on Team Flash worried.

Worried enough to the point that Caitlin calls Felicity and begs the blonde hacker to tell her what happened. But the problem is that even Felicity and Diggle and Roy don't know what's wrong.

Oliver hasn't been back to his house for four nights, unable to sleep in the expanses of his bed without Barry lying beside him, which is awfully ridiculous and unwarranted entirely because Barry only sleeps there once ever week (even then, at most, an exaggeration). Oliver can go weeks without Barry with him and manages fine, but now his bed feels too cold, too big in its expansion. So he's been sleeping on Thea's couch. It's easier to pretend when he's just pressed into the creases of her couch, and even if he wakes with a crick in his neck at least he can say he's slept.

His bedroom all on its own is completely ransacked, as if a tornado had spun around his room. Mattresses thrown around the room, comforters on the floor. Vases were shattered on the ground.

It's two months later when Oliver finally takes the iniative to drive six hundred miles to Barry.

It's not out of an attempt to drag out the fight either; but he knows that Barry needs time, needs space. To grieve. To mourn. 

So finally, when he passes the sign reading that he's reached Central City, he... doesn't know what to do with himself. He buys flowers. Fifteen red roses. He's long passed swallowed his pride, knows that if this separation has taught him much, it's that Oliver needs Barry. Oliver needs him so much, can't bear to lose him. He's lost too much and if he loses Barry it'll the be the tip of the iceberg. 

When he works up the courage to knock on Barry's door, he raises a hand just for Barry to abruptly open the door. Oliver can't even breathe at the sight of Barry at this point; Barry who stares at him with these unreadable eyes. Instead, Barry doesn't say a word, just opens the door and walks to the couch. Oliver closes the door behind him as he sets the flowers on the coffee table, sitting beside Barry. He doesn't know if he should touch knees with him, or if he should keep his distance. 

He rehearsed what he would say to Barry, But now? None of that matters because Oliver is utterly speechless. 

They don't say a word to each other, silence stretching between them like a tightrope, and what's killing Oliver right now is that Barry doesn't look a shred of angry. Just... sad.

"I'm sorry," Is the first thing Oliver says. Then just like that, it's as if he's smashed through a dam. "I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean to say that you should get used to death. I just... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry --" And he can't believe it's his voice that says it, which hangs between them, punched out and pained. He puts his head in his hands. Collapsing into the exhaustion. He wants to hit something. He's been punching walls for the past weeks now, knuckles shredded; punishing himself and it hasn't even begun to help but fuck he wants to.

Something gentle brushes against his hands, disentangling them from his hair, and he looks up at Barry, heart pounding, lets the younger push his hands down. Barry doesn't break eye contact, doesn't let go of his hands either.

"Thea told me."

Oliver goes rigid at that. His eyes shutter close as he exhales.

"She told me about Tommy," Barry continues, voice cracking from tears that fill his eyes. Oliver wants to wipe away the tears as they fall. "She told me that Tommy had died from an earthquake, from the building collapsing with him still inside. How you found him trapped and impaled by a bar. How he died."

"When I saw you about to get crushed from rubble --"

"You saw him, didn't you?"

Oliver doesn't say a word as Barry just pulls him close and wraps his arms around the elder's frame, Oliver burying his face into the younger's shoulder. He feels numb; can just see the way Barry could have been swallowed by flames. And it's not the same, not in the slightest. But fuck, Oliver couldn't lose Barry, Not when he had lost so much, and the thought of Barry being crushed from the collapse of the building, of dying...

"I can't lose you, too."

Barry makes a little pained noise in the back of his throat, like the elder's just gutted him, and presses a feather soft hand to Oliver's cheek. The elder opens his eyes, looks into Barry's soft teary eyes. A quiet (but not hesitant in the slightest) mumble, "You won't lose me."

Oliver lets out a shaky breath, pulls Barry close to him, and Barry lets him, hears him laugh softly. Oliver is always going to be protective, fiercely protective, of Barry, will do anything for his young lover. And maybe that's not healthy, not something he can expect Barry to put with forever. Maybe things will end in screaming matches, loud fights, and a whisper-soft conversation on Barry's couch. But if the exchange is moments like this, where everything fades away and leaves them just wrapped up in each other, or when Oliver can wake up in the middle of the night and brush his lips against the nape of Barry's neck as he sleeps... It's not even a question.

They've turned towards each other, like magnets, like clockwork, and Oliver doesn't know if he's allowed to reach out and touch, but Barry makes the first move, pulls him in and seals their lips together. Oliver bends his neck to catch the kiss more fully, kisses him back gently. They kiss like they're drowning, and Oliver thinks they are, drowning in each other.

They trade kisses more, soft chaste ones, again and again -- until the weight that's been there since two months ago has lifted, until he can feel Barry smiling against his lips, until Oliver can finally pull back smiling softly, too.

(Barry says it again, the morning after.

"You won't lose me."

Oliver believes him.)

**Author's Note:**

> So this was crossposted on my Tumblr!! I post most of my writing there, but this one made my heart hurt, so I decided to post it on here, too!! :) I hope you all like/liked it, and I do take requests, so if you have any: just send them to my tumblr c: Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
